Day Light Raids In Baghdad

By Edward. I. James


Yesterday, Iraqi police forces freed one hundred citizens in Baghdad after being seized by twenty masked gunmen.

The 20 people who seized them all had guns and were posing as interior ministry police so they could seal off the street and gain entry to the higher education ministry.

Most of the hostages seized in the have been released, Iraqi officials said.

The BBC was also told, by a government spokesman, that the hostages were freed in a number of daylight raids across the city.

The police chief of the Karrada district is being held along with four of his colleagues. This happens to also be the place where a lot of abductions took place

Earlier on in the day it had been said that all the hostages had been released but the police are claiming that they are trying to free more people.

Gunmen dressed in similar uniform of that used by Iraqi police abducted dozens of people.

Early Tuesday morning almost twenty of these abductees were freed. However, the rest of the hostages had to wait almost another twenty four hours before being rescued, according to presidential security adviser Wafiq al-Sammarai.


Day light raid

At first people estimated that more than one hundred people were being kept hostage, however that was later revised down throughout the day.

When the first reports started to come in they said that there were forty people still in captivity just before the police operation set them free.

When the people were set free they had said that they had not been taken far and had certainly not left Baghdad.

The people who took them captive had been wearing uniforms recently issued by Iraqi police.

The education ministry was stormed by the attackers; they locked all the women in a room and took all the men away.

The daylight abduction and use of apparently genuine government uniforms prompted questions about official involvement in the operation.

Five senior officers are right now being questioned about these unfortunate circumstances.

These frequent out bursts of violence in Iraq are making me ask myself, why did we go into Iraq in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I was against it from the off but for those people who hated Sadam housain i.e. George Bush, is Iraq actually better?